Google culls unpopular services
The axeman cometh for Google's less popular services.
While we've known that Google Wave has been headed for the bin for a while, its closure date has now been officially announced as 31 January 2012, when the service will become read-only for the few remaining users.
Also on the chopping block are the web application browser extension Google Gears, which will cease working on 1 December, website plugin Google Friend Connect, which will close its doors on 31 March, and article collaboration service Knol, which will close on 30 April, 2012.
It seems the problem with being the world's largest search engine and having enough cash to buy a small South American country is that not every new venture or idea works out.
However, while it's always disheartening to see services close, it's unlikely there will be too many mourners for those axed. Just so long as Google keeps working towards those awesome self-driving cars and running most of the world's web searches, it'll probably be okay.
Did you use Google Friend Connect, Gears or Wave? Do you use any of Google's other services such as G+? Let us know your thoughts in the forum.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyAt least they try the ideas and give them some developement, rather than just discounting them at birth.
Frankly, I'm not surprised at Google dropping these services - how many people use anything beyond searching and (perhaps) Google+?
On a completely unrelated note, today's Google Doodle is an ultra cool homage to Stanislav Lem. YouTube link for those reading this on Thursday:
WDy9MCkJMh8
Er...lots of people....like, me!
Google Maps - every day
Google Mail/Gmail - every day
Google Docs - at least once a week
Google Reader - every day
Google Shopping/Froogle - every week
Google Translate - every week
Google Earth - every week
Google Picasa - every day
Google Sketchup - every week
Blogger - most days
...and, of course, Google+ and Youtube every day.
I'd guess "quite a lot of people" use at least 2 of these on a regular basis....
Wave allows 5 people editing the same LaTex document at the same time, then just copy+paste the whole thing into text file and hit compile for a very nice looking document. without Wave, my final year group project probably would be much, much more difficult to coordinate and require at least 1 person do a one-nighter before the hand-in date.
I'm pretty much the same :) apart from Translate, Sketchup and Blogger. I think its safe to say the above services will be around for a while :).
Google Apps is probably the single most important thing for me (well second to search) on the entire internet
Everybody should have an Apps Account and probably would if they new what it could do
I swear you could make a decent living solely setting up peoples Googles apps accounts for them (and have to do very little)
I may be getting old thou...
Anyway, I wish they would buy a small country in south america! that would be cool!
Can't say I've heard any of those listed.
That.
Google is a fantastic company though. Google search has completely transformed the way I use the internet, and Google Maps & Google Earth have massively improved certain elements of my life in general. I don't really use anything else of theirs, but the way some people are talking up their other stuff I suppose I may just have to take a look...
how many of the things they end up getting rid of would take off if they were just brought to more people's attention?!
I remember hearing of Gears, but apparently I didn't find it interesting enough to figure out what it was. Knol was supposed to kill Wikipedia. Friend Connect I'd never heard of, but then again, I have no friends.
I'm with delriogw and mi1ez - glad that they try new things. How often do you see that with big companies? I just wish I worked at a place that gave me "20% time"
Nope nobody else can be bothered either beyond the initial sign up, it's bollocks.
hm....
now what did I come in here for?
NURSE!
Edit: Seriously, I don't remember any of those - they can't have been that well promoted.
2ndly
err -WHY?
if the iphone hadn't existed where would google have got all it's ideas for android from?
I don't own anything apple but personnally I've never understood the hatred of apple. Indifference I understand. Ignore them for being expensive, pretenious and smug sure. but competition keeps prices down and basically andriod phones and tablets are clones of what apple did years ago. whatever else you think about apple computers give them some credit for the iphone ipad and the clones it has produced.
Bing, Office and IE9 and Facebook. What am I supposed to need Google for again?
Cant say I had even heard of any of the services they are culling TBH.
You're not *supposed* to need any of them for anything....they're optional, in your life, ya know?
I really don't understand the anti-google sentiment that comes out in bit-tech sometimes...
It's all about choice. You choose Bing, I choose Google. You choose IE9, I choose Chrome. You choose Facef**k, I choose Google+
Technology is there to help you...why do people see the need to take sides on *everything*.
..and, tbh, if you're gonna do a like-to-like comparison of the services you just mentioned above, you might as well accept now that you're gonna lose since, aside from MS Office, which I'm a big fan of, Bing, Facebook and IE9 are all equally horrid.
No thanks, I can live blissfully without the need to use a goggle adware product.
On the plus side, as others have pointed out, Google has to be applauded for at least trying. If you try that many new things out, some of them are bound to fail.
And Apple got there first, sorry. Apple Newton, remember? You kids are just too young to know your history.
Also, Snips, have you ever used WinPhone 7? It's actually rather different from iOS/Android, owing to a number of things. The Metro interface is Typography vs. Icon based, and feels considerably different to both. So no, Microsoft didn't invent the technologies in either. See Nexxo's post above.
Oh, and the Newton OS isn't something I'd consider to be the 'first smartphone OS', considering 1. It was a PDA OS and 2. The entire project was canned. The Newton was subject to feature creep, and what Apple were left with was an unwieldy and unmarketable product. Which was in no way related to Smartphones so the point is moot.
I think the real thing that could make or break WinPhone 7 is Nokia. They're a huge entity in the worldwide phone market, and them championing WinPhone as their OS of choice is going to be a huge boost to consumer knowledge.
Really, the issue is people don't know that much about Windows Phone. The iPhone became popular due to a lot of marketing and critical acclaim. Android became popular due to the amount of flexibility it offered, and as the alternative to an iPhone. Windows Phone hasn't really had the advantage of such things, and as such hasn't made that much impact on the market.
Another thing Microsoft has is the fact that WinPhone integrates directly with Outlook (which means direct integration with Exchange Server, very popular for businesses, and Live Mail, still one of the more popular e-mail services) and Microsoft Office, which allows you to work on exactly the same document on your phone as the one on your PC. Sure, that's of dubious usefulness but it's there, all the same.
But still, time will tell. If the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia works out, WinPhone 7 could be very big. If not, then it'll probably stay in the background, and Nokia will probably continue to have a declining market share. We shall see.
So when Apple sues HTC for patents it's ok but when Microsoft sues HTC for patents, it's patent trolling? Jesus! I'm sure a brainfart happened there somewhere! o.0
-Google Maps quite often, could be replaced with Bing maps I suppose but why switch? It offers no advantage.
-Gmail for my two personal email accounts, so very often. Just happen to like their service, why switch now that I already have two well established addresses?
-Google Video aka Youtube daily, almost irreplacable.
-Google Translate quite often, it's reasonably accurate for my purposes and quick to use.
I'm still with Facebook rather than Google+ because I see no advantage to make me have both or switch over completely and I use Firefox rather than Chrome for a variety of reason but Google certainly have some services which I enjoy.
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I thought you were just joking AstralWanderer! I bet no one admits to using that
Just remember Apple weren't the first. Touch phones existed, tablets existed long before apple came up with them. They just brought new technology to them and a helluva lot of marketing power. The PR side of things is where Apple can attribute most of its success from as well as a polished first presentation of the iPhone. Right now they are good for competition, but they have been left behind seeing as there are x2.5 more android users than Apple and this is still increasing.
1. PDA's begat smartphones. Palm Treo, Windows Mobiles and all that schtick. They just added a phone application to the GUI.
2. Newton got canned because it was too ambitious for the available technology to work, but not before it begat Palmpilot: a smaller, cheaper clone with (much) fewer features but a lower price. Palmpilot begat the Windows PDA, trying to get in on the action. As mobile phones matured, they converged with these PDAs to become smartphones.
Apple started working on a possible tablet by then (yes, that far back). By the time smartphones became de rigeur, Apple realised that it had all the elements to join in: remnants from the Newton, an OS developed for small touch-screen devices and a media distribution network via the iPod and iTunes. Basically, the MP3 player converged with PDA and mobile. The rest is history.
For example, when the Google wave was introduced, it was given too much hype but i foretold that it will be a complete disaster and I was right, because they came very weak in comparison to the competitors.
So in short I consider it to be a very good forward step ahead.
Google Wave (in spite of its abominable moniker) had some cool features I really hope to see incorporated into a more streamlined, less-unfortunately-named service.
Rightly? Depends on your definition. By the way, Microsoft only could manage it by going in cahoots with Apple.
Don't crow victory. You are not on the winning side; you are on the losing one. The people who ultimately pay the price for all these patent shenanigans are all of us.